Today’s guests:

It looks like a typical four-bedroom suburban home. Some might even call it a McMansion. But you won’t find a family of four inside this house on the Gaithersburg, Md., campus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Scientists are using it as a lab for green technologies that any suburban family could adopt at home.

No one is certain what the nation’s energy future will look like. That’s why the Energy Department has been placing small bets on a variety of promising new technologies. It just concluded a round of grants totaling $130 million.

Twenty-five years ago, the Federal Employee Retirement System superseded the Civil Servant Retirement System. In the years since, how has FERS served federal workers? This is part of our Special Report, FERS: 25 Years Later.

Time is ticking for the 112th Congress. There aren’t a lot of working days left in the session — but lots of work to do. How much of it will actually be done? Pete Kasperowicz, a staff writer for The Hill newspaper, joins the Federal Drive, to discuss several bills in Congress that matter to you.

Tom Temin is the host of The Federal Drive, which airs from 6-9 a.m. on 1500 AM in the Washington, DC region and online everywhere. Tom has 30 years experience in journalism, mostly in technology markets. Before coming to Federal News Radio, he was a long-serving editor-in-chief of Government Computer News and Washington Technology magazines.